the laughter that always befalls the
unlucky wight guilty of a blunder in a name.

'You don't mean that you don't know who she is, Aubrey!' was the cry.

'I--how should I?'

'What, not Mrs. Pugh?' exclaimed Daisy.

'Pew or Pug--I know nothing of either. Is this edge as mourning for
all the old pews that have been demolished in the church?'

'For shame, Aubrey,' said Mary seriously. 'You must know it is for her
husband.'

Aubrey set up his eyebrows in utter ignorance.

'How true it is that one half the world knows nothing of the other!'
exclaimed Ethel. 'Do you really mean you have never found out the
great Mrs. Pugh, Mrs. Ledwich's dear suffering Matilda?'

'I've seen a black lady sitting with Mrs. Ledwich in church.'

'Such is life,' said Ethel. 'How little she thought herself living in
such an unimpressible world!'

'She is a pretty woman enough,' observed Tom.

'And very desirous of being useful,' added Richard. 'She and Mrs.
Ledwich came over to Cocksmoor this morning, and offered any kind of
assistance.'

'At Cocksmoor!' cried Ethel, much as if it had been the French.

'Every district is filled up here, you know,' said Richard, 'and Mrs.
Ledwich begged me as a personal favour to give her some occupation that
would interest her and cheer her spirits, so I asked her to look after
those new cottages at Gould's End, quite out of your beat, Ethel, and
she seemed to be going about energetically.'

Tom looked unutterable things at Ethel, who replied with a glance
between diversion and dismay.

'Who is the lady?' said Blanche. 'She assaulted me in the street with
inquiries and congratulations about Harry, declaring she had known me
as a child, a thing I particularly dislike:' and Mrs. Ernescliffe
looked like a ruffled goldfinch.

'Forgetting her has not been easy to the payers of duty calls,' said
Ethel. 'She was the daughter of Mrs. Ledwich's brother, the Colonel of
Marines, and used in old times to be with her aunt; there used to be
urgent invitations to Flora and me to drink tea there because she was
of our age. She married quite young, something very prosperous and
rather aged, and the glories of dear Matilda's villa at Bristol have
been our staple subject, but Mr. Pugh died in the spring, leaving his
lady five hundred a year absolutely her own, and she is come to stay
with her aunt, and look for a house.'

'Et cetera,' added Tom.

'What, in the buxom widow line?' asked Harry.

'No, no